Am I Wound Too Tight? Every day my assistant receives in the neighborhood of 5 calls and countless emails from her husband at the office during work hours. The emails I don't really mind, and at first I thought it was kind of cute and I didn't think much of the phone calls, so I let them slide. But lately the phone calls have really started to annoy me. To her credit, the husband calls her on her cell phone, not an office line and she is still able to do most of her work while she yaks it up in Spanish to him. Most of the phone calls are short, and I know that they are not serious or anything because she talks baby talk to him. The baby talk is really annoying after the second or third call.

I think my irritation is starting to show, because I am beginning to ask sharp little questions like "Doesn't he ever work?" Because I mean, seriously, how can the guy call her so often if he's actually working ? (As I type my blog entry ...) I know he just got some new office job so I presume he has some sort of manager or oversight. Maybe he has his own office and he can just close the door and do his thing. I don't know. I've got half a mind to call his manager and say "Hey look, you've got this guy and he's burning about an hour a day in phone calls to his wife ..." Of course I won't do that, but I'm tempted. I've also begun to harbor secret loathings for her husband and consider him "less of a man" because of what I consider to be too many phone calls. It makes me curious about him at the same time. I can't help but think of him like some giant infant, and in my mind's eye I always picture him in a diaper with a big rattle in one had and the cell phone in the other.

The whole situation has made me question my stress level. Should I be getting this upset over this woman, who is a tremendous asset to our daily operations? Or am I overreacting? I have been told that I am a little dramatic, so I am willing most of the time to consider the possibility that the problem is not so dire as I make it out to be. I guess dire is not the right word. Maybe I should not be reacting to the situation with such seriousness. I think that's the Zen side of me: let it all go. Take a deep breath and just do what you are doing now, don't get distracted by everything else going on around you. But in all honesty, if you were forced to listen to baby talk in Spanish between two adults on a daily basis for several minutes at a time can you say that you wouldn't get slightly miffed?
  ¶ 2:21 PM